VA GOP chair: We sent memo on petition verification in October

posted at 11:25 am on December 29, 2011 by Ed Morrissey

Yesterday, an undated memo from the chair of the Republican Party of Virginia surfaced, in which Pat Mullins announced the validation process for candidate petitions in the presidential race to qualify for the primary ballot. This led some to claim that the RPV had changed the rules at the last minute, keeping Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich from getting onto the ballot. Mullins responded to this speculation in a lengthy statement, reprinted at the Virginia blog Bearing Drift, in which Mullins states that the memo went out to all campaigns in October:

From the earliest days of the campaigns, RPV has actively told candidates that Virginia’s signature requirements could be a difficult legal requirement to meet for those who were new to Virginia politics.

In October 2011, RPV formally adopted the certification procedures that were applied on December 23: any candidate who submitted over 15,000 facially-valid signatures would be presumed to be in compliance with Virginia’s 10,000 signature law. …

Candidates were officially informed of the 15,000 rule in October 2011, well in advance of the Dec. 22 submission deadline. The rule was no surprise to any candidate – and indeed, no candidate or campaign offered any complaints until after the Dec. 23 validation process had concluded.

Despite this early notice and RPV’s exhortations to candidates, only one candidate availed himself of the 15,000 signature threshold – Governor Mitt Romney. RPV counted Governor Romney’s signatures, reviewed them for facial validity, and determined he submitted well over 15,000. Never in the party’s history has a candidate who submitted more than 15,000 signatures had 33 percent invalidated. The party is confident that Governor Romney met the statutory threshold.

Rep. Ron Paul submitted just under 15,000, and was submitted to signature-by-signature scrutiny on the same basis as the other candidates who submitted fewer than 15,000 signatures. After more than 7 hours of work, RPV determined that Rep. Paul had cleared the statutory 10,000/400 signature standard with ease.

The RPV had sent out the verification requirements to all campaigns in March of this year, with the advice to collect between 15,000 and 20,000 signatures, as well as noting the requirements in state law for addresses for each signature, and so on. The only change that took place in October was the decision to accept 15,000 signatures as prima facie evidence of qualification without having to verify each signature, a change that made ballotaccesseasier, not more difficult. All campaigns got two month’s notice of this change, and only one took advantage of it — Mitt Romney’s. Ron Paul’s campaign just missed the cut and the RPV had to verify each signature. Otherwise, the verification standards for the signatures didn’t change at all, which they couldn’t, as those are set by state law in Virginia.

Other candidates can challenge this interpretation of Virginia law, but the only consequence of that challenge would be to force the RPV to individually validate Romney’s signatures in order to establish equal treatment. That won’t put more signatures on paper for either Gingrich or Perry.

Moreover, the idea that the Republican Party in Virginia has a stake in narrowing the field is, frankly, strange. All this does is make Virginia less relevant, not more, in the primary process, hardly the outcome that a state that fought for a Super Tuesday slot wants. None of the other candidates will bother to campaign in the Old Dominion now, which will hurt Republicans running for state offices as well as Congress as money goes elsewhere in this cycle. The incentives for the RPV are all tilted in the other direction — getting more candidates to spend more time and money in their state in order to help boost Republican fortunes in Virginia.

Mullins concludes with a little warning shot across the bow of campaigns claiming victimization in this process:

The party will discuss the specific nature of their shortfalls if necessary. But the failure of these two candidates to meet the state requirements does not call into question the accuracy of the Party’s certification of the two candidates who are duly qualified to appear on the ballot.

I’m sure that the Gingrich and Perry campaigns don’t want any more discussion of organizational incompetence as the primaries rapidly approach. Clearly, though, Republican campaigns had ample warning of the verification process and the option to skip it by following the RPV’s advice from March to get at least 150% of the legally required signatures to ensure ballot access.

Voters who want to take part in the Commonwealth’s March 6 Republican primary will be asked for a November commitment.

Virginia Republicans requested the Va. State Board of Elections to allow it to ask primary voters for a loyalty oath, promising to support the Republican party’s nominee for president in the general election.

“The code of Virginia allows for political parties to require individuals who wish to participate in presidential primaries to sign a pledge that he or she will support the party’s candidate in the general election,” said Justin Riemer, deputy secretary of the Virginia State Board of Elections. For this year’s primaries, Virginia’s Republican party chose to exercise that right.

According to the Times-Dispatch, “The pledge will require the voter to sign and to print his name beneath a line that says: “I, the undersigned, pledge that I intend to support the nominee of the Republican Party for president.”

Maybe they should have made that a requirement of the candidates, since one of the two on the ballot won’t make that same commitment. It’s obviously not binding, but it might offend a few independents and Democrats, and, er … you know who that helps.

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Comments

There’s no point in acting all surprised about it. The plans and orders have been on display at your local planning office in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge formal complaints. What do you mean you’ve never been to
Alpha Centauri? Oh, for heaven’s sake man, it’s only four light years away you know. I’m sorry, but if you can’t be bothered to take an interest in local affairs that’s your own lookout.

Sorry but many here are simply whining about their own candidates FAILURE to adhere to guideline /issued made well in advance of any deadline.

The whiners are likely the same people who fail to read user manuals then bitch when they break it, burn their house down or other things preventable..

IMHO all these candidates suck and it verifies what my father in law once said. In a nation of 300 milion this the best we can do? He was speaking about Kerry/Bush but ture still to this day..

By the way… buy any new toys.. RTFM and FTFM

theblacksheepwasright on December 29, 2011 at 12:41 PM

We should all be concerned about people gaming elections. This sounds like the argument the left is using against ID card requirements for elections. Onerous rule changes effecting ballot access is an old Democrat dirty trick.

Okay, but for argument’s sake you ought to keep your arguments in the realm of ‘it’s up for debate’, not use assertions of fact based on hearsay. I’ve looked around and couldn’t find a link to the submission cover page. I did a little checking and found no number at Perry’s website. I read the full legal complaint that Perry filed and he never bothered to state he had a number of signatures over 10k.

There is no zero proof, therefore, that Perry’s failure rate exceeded the traditional 33%.

Dusty on December 29, 2011 at 12:44 PM

It wasn’t hearsay, I read the actual number somewhere. I am trying to deal in facts (though we all stumble!)

Well, either we have corruption or incompetence at the VA GOP, and that ain’t good.

Corruption: The 15,000-sig waiver rule was firmed up late to benefit Romney

OR

Incompetence: Inability to realize that allowing 15,000-sig batches to coast through, unchecked, meant it was statistically impossible to determine if the 10,000-sig threshold was actually reached.

Or maybe a combination thereof? Either way, the whole thing stinks to high heaven, as we can’t lose sight of the fact that Virginia voters end up with a farcical ballot that doesn’t even let them choose between the candidates they have seen debating on TV for months.

Does anyone have the info on Gingrich = signatures submitted vs. signatures accepted? This would help my statistical analysis. I’d like to establish his reject rate.

cane_loader on December 29, 2011 at 12:57 PM

According to the Virginia GOP, Perry turned in 11,900 signatures, well over the required 10,000 — in years past, that would have automatically qualified him for the primary ballot, no questions asked. But in the campaign’s court filing, the text explains that Perry “submitted to the Board over 6,000 petition signatures from qualified Virginia voters,” suggesting that nearly half of Perry’s petition entries were examined by the state party and struck down.

As in, were Romney and Paul allowed to dredge up lists from 2008 and just use those quick as a wink, or was there some mechanism to prevent this? (And this would have been fraud, by the way, as the signatures were supposed to have been for the 2012 ballot, not the 2008).

All campaigns got two month’s notice of this change, and only one took advantage of it — Mitt Romney’s.Ed Morrisey

You say they all campaigns were notified in October. How were they notified? By letter? When did the letters go out? Did anyone call the campaigns? If a letter went out at the end of October the campaigns might not have opened it until mid-November leaving them a little over a month to gather the requisite signatures. How hard is that?

Bill C on December 29, 2011 at 12:35 PM

I thought from day-one of this story, that two months notice on a rules change (however slight) is hardly sufficient/good enough when it affects a Presidential election.
But that still isn’t my biggest gripe about this story.

My biggest gripe would be:HEY, VIRGINIA!
WHY THE (expletive) DO YOU DISALLOW WRITE-INS FOR PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES?

I think that’s at least as much of an issue as the two month rules change notification.

The Osborne lawsuit was filed on Oct 24 (IIRC). So the VA GOP created the new 15,000 no-check rule after that date. If it was in October it had to be right before Halloween.

Gideon7 on December 29, 2011 at 1:01 PM

Thank you. Then if letters went out shortly after that then the campaigns would not have known about the change until early November at the earliest. It is quite possible that the letters went out much later.

Ed, this is important because judging whether the campaigns were given adequate notice depends on when they were notified.

The Osborne lawsuit was filed on Oct 24 (IIRC). So the VA GOP created the new 15,000 no-check rule after that date. If it was in October it had to be right before Halloween.

Gideon7 on December 29, 2011 at 1:01 PM

Thank you. Then if letters went out shortly after that then the campaigns would not have known about the change until early November at the earliest. It is quite possible that the letters went out much later.

Ed, this is important because judging whether the campaigns were given adequate notice depends on when they were notified.

Bill C on December 29, 2011 at 1:06 PM

I second that. If it’s truly incompetence, then, yes, hang Perry and Gingrich for that. But if late notice was a factor, then it’s unfair to buy into the media meme of incompetence.

The red flag for me is that both Perry AND Gingrich fell short. That tells me the situation isn’t as cut and dried as it night seem.

On October 24, 2011, Michael Osborne, an independent legislative candidate, filed a lawsuit against the Virginia Republican Party alleging unfair ballot treatment. Osborne argued that if independent candidate petitions must be checked, so too must the primary petitions be checked for signatures.

One aspect I have not seen explored. Was there any indication that Gingrich failed the 600-signature per district rule? I haven’t yet seen a tally of Gingrich’s total accepted signatures. I am interested to see his failure rate.

As in, were Romney and Paul allowed to dredge up lists from 2008 and just use those quick as a wink, or was there some mechanism to prevent this? (And this would have been fraud, by the way, as the signatures were supposed to have been for the 2012 ballot, not the 2008).

cane_loader on December 29, 2011

If a candidate reaches the 15,000 signature plateau then ALL of the signatures are DEEMED valid and are unimpeachable. They could be ten thousand signatures gathered from the offices of the Nigerian Embassy but NOBODY is even allowed to CHECK VALIDITY.

If a candidate reaches the 15,000 signature plateau then ALL of the signatures are DEEMED valid and are unimpeachable. They could be ten thousand signatures gathered from the offices of the Nigerian Embassy but NOBODY is even allowed to CHECK VALIDITY.

JonPrichard on December 29, 2011 at 1:15 PM

You do realize that your argument is sophistry, right?

You are saying that “Osama bin Laden, 666 Inferno Place, Hell” can be “deemed” a valid signature?

I’ve looked but I can’t find it. Neither the MSM nor the righty blogosphere is doing much good reporting on this. As you can see above it is a lefty blog which had the info. Theothermccain has got it right. But even Red State hasn’t delved that deeply in this pile of s***.

Thanks, but that’s only according to Rawstory, not definitive, in my mind, when there is no name attached. And who knows where the Rawstory got the info. It could just as easily be off another website that said the same thing.

Maybe Perry did submit that amount but it should be so easy to verify, why isn’t something definitive already available on the internet. The submissions are available to the public.

I’ve looked but I can’t find it. Neither the MSM nor the righty blogosphere is doing much good reporting on this. As you can see above it is a lefty blog which had the info. Theothermccain has got it right. But even Red State hasn’t delved that deeply in this pile of s***.

Bill C on December 29, 2011 at 1:19 PM

What also stinks is the way the VA GOP leaked the info out, instead of posting an easily readable spreadsheet of signatures submitted vs. signatures validated. They should have given the public the basic info, instead of making us try to chase the facts. I want Gingrich’s numbers, because it will establish if Perry uniquely failed, or whether Gingrich also had a 50% rejection rate.

If so, then how can one logically say that since Perry and Gingrich had a 50% failure rate, ergo Romney must have had a 33% failure rate?

Signs point to miscommunication within the Gingrich camp about the new rule.

It looks like Newt is moving on. He knows that fighting the VA GOP now is pointless – the VA Rules Committee refused to meet before Dec 27. Candidates agree in advance not sue their own party, so he had no recourse.

I suspect we won’t hear more the controversy from his side, at least not until he publishes his next book.

They certainly are acting guilty. This could go either way but nobody is trying to get to the bottom of this story. It’s a shame. I wish Ed would try and look into finding this data. It’s not like we are conspiracy mongers trying to smear with innuendo.

1. Virginia updated its requirements last summer.
2. Then reminded the campaigns in October of those updated requirements–two months to spare.

Somehow Romney and Paul had the only boots-on-the-ground competent campaign organizations to get this done with signatures to spare, and yet the failings of Newt & Perry’s team to meet the simple requirement is Romney’s fault, or the result of some super-secret cabal conspiracy. Grow up. Man up. Nut up. Whatever–just stop the whining. You all look like libs– complaining about the success of those more professional, more organized, and more COMPETENT than your team.

and yet the failings of Newt & Perry’s team to meet the simple requirement is Romney’s fault, or the result of some super-secret cabal conspiracy. Grow up. Man up. Nut up. Whatever–just stop the whining. You all look like libs– complaining about the success of those more professional, more organized, and more COMPETENT than your team.

I’m not posing an argument. I’m stating the effective facts of the Virginia GOP Primary system.

You are saying that “Osama bin Laden, 666 Inferno Place, Hell” can be “deemed” a valid signature?

Yes I am. Further, no one can check to see if Romney or Paul have stacks of OBL at 666 Inferno Place, Mickey and Minni Mouse or if the signatures by and large are culled from Virginia’s Death Row population.

A signature is either valid or it isn’t. There is no “deeming.”

Sure. A signature is valid or it isn’t. But if it can’t be checked and verified one way or the other it is certainly ‘deemed’ valid by the Virginia GOP. That is ‘deeming’ by any reasonable interpretation of the English language.

The RPV is hardly renowned for their own organizational excellence but it seems to me that if you can’t even get 15,000 signatures on a petition to get on the ballot in a relatively conservative state like Virginia, then you probably don’t have the organization to win in the general election.

Happy Nomad on December 29, 2011 at 11:38 AM

This. I said something very much like this in the last article filled with moping about the Newt/Perry disenfranchisement. And the complainers perennially ignore the unassailable fact that neither candidate could gather enough valid signatures to get onto a presidential primary ballot.

I’m having a hard time understanding what are supposed to be the alternatives to the observed outcome:
- Are candidates supposed to be allowed to submit 10,000 fake signatures and get a free pass onto the ballot?
- Were the candidates supposed to be allowed more time for a “fair chance” to go around and collect 15,000 fake signatures and get a free pass onto the ballot? If they’ll take fake signatures with no accounting anyway, how much time do you need to have some staffers write up some fake rolls?
- Would the candidates somehow magically have collected 10,000 real signatures by having more advance notice of a threshold of 15,000 fake signatures?
- Should Romney be checked and theoretically be thrown off the ballot, leaving effectively no Republican candidate in the VA primary? Who is served by that? It still doesn’t get Newt or Perry ON the ballot.

I really don’t see an “equal protection” angle on this that will put someone on the ballot who deserved to be there and was excluded, nor one that will do anything other than further deteriorate the state of affairs in VA. So what’s the endgame for the crusaders on this issue?

The PDF contains a hidden Microsoft Word creation date of 12/21/2011. This is the first public announcement of the rule change AFAIK.
Gideon7 on December 28, 2011 at 10:31 AM

If they are referring to the pdf memo with the hidden creation date of 12/21/2011 – how do they explain that?
TheRightMan on December 29, 2011 at 11:47 AM

The surge of Internet Detectives ™ who right-click something and check the properties and think they’re somebody out of NCIS or Criminal Minds or something, are kinda like the people who get onto your laptop while you’re still logged into Facebook, post a status, and claim they “hacked” you. There is not a “hidden creation date” that required any kind of intimate knowledge of Adobe’s encoding protocols. You (the person who blogged about this originally) right-clicked and hit Document Properties. Hooray for you.

But the problem is that the only thing it tells you is the date and time that someone took an existing Word document, and converted it to PDF for public viewing in a non-editable format (PDF vs. Word). Who can tell me the date this document was published?Hint: if you click the Download Original button, you can save the PDF button locally and check the “hidden MS Word creation date”.

While I’ll gladly accept my own typos as my own fault, other than the opening blurb, the rest is a piece cited/pasted from Ricochet by Professor Paul Rahe. And yes I was a little astonished myself by some of his errors, none-the-less, I do think “unreadable” is a tad over the top. If you couldn’t get the gist of his premise, then perhaps it is your reading comprehension skills that ought be considered.

As to Prof. Rahe’s typos, it should be noted that Ricochet is a give and take/banter format and in keeping up with the flow grammatical diligence is often martyred in the heat of debate.

Also, being a contractor I have found that the dependence on computers has done much to facilitate sloppiness, I have seen with my own eyes prints for a $3.1Mil home proposed for just off campus of De Paul U that lacked any doorways at all, front, back, closets, baths, BR’s.. the whole bloody place, no doorways. Such are the dangers of auto-cad.

Anyways the discussion usually on HA is focused on the pertinence of people’s points and not dictation and grammar, I myself am incredibly guilty of not previewing, alas, my humble apologies, such is life.

I apologize if I imputed to you an intent to deceive. I just don’t see any gain in “deeming” signatures valid. I want Romney’s counted; otherwise, I reject the statistical premise that he is eligible for the ballot, because it was based upon an assumption by the VA GOP that Romney would have no more than 33% disqualified signatures.

If assumptions were going to be the modus operandi, then the VA GOP should have assumed that a significant portion of their electorate considered Perry and Gingrich viable candidates for whom they should should have been allowed to cast a primary vote.

But the problem is that the only thing it tells you is the date and time that someone took an existing Word document, and converted it to PDF for public viewing in a non-editable format (PDF vs. Word). Who can tell me the date this document was published? Hint: if you click the Download Original button, you can save the PDF button locally and check the “hidden MS Word creation date”.

1. Virginia updated its requirements last summer.
2. Then reminded the campaigns in October of those updated requirements–two months to spare.

AttilaTheHun on December 29, 2011 at 1:40 PM

Wrong. RPV set a guideline that over 15,000 signatures would be best. That occurred last summer. In 2000 and 2008 the cut off for having your signatures checked was 10,000. That did not change in July. Then sometime in October they changed the guideline to a rule in which only campaigns submitting over 15,000 signatures would not have them checked via computer. Only one campaign, Romney’s, met that new rule. Also, we don’t know when or how the RPV informed the campaigns nor do we know if some of the campaigns might have been given a heads up; i.e., “hey buddy, their is a rule change coming.”

To date, only Gingrich’s, Perry’s, and Paul’s signatures have been checked for validity.

I would think, also, that if Perry had submitted 11,900 signatures and 50%+/- were deemed invalid, giving a failure rate as cane_loader argues, that Perry’s astute legal team would recognize that Romney’s and Paul’s might also and make an argument in the complaint that the GOP giving such a waiver to verification is not sound and violated equal treatment. Also, IIRC, at the time of the complaint, the RPV hadn’t come out and stated that Paul’s submission got the rigorous verification treatment, increasing the likelihood of that being a good point to put in the complaint. What you and cane_loader point out is something that is blatantly obvious, if true, and yet Perry doesn’t bother to use it in the complaint.

Let me just note that I’m not saying that Perry didn’t submit 11,900, but the indications of what is, in fact, true doesn’t comport well with other info we have and are forced to infer from.

Bottom line, Romney’s signatures are the only ones that are being checked to a different standard. Considering that Gingrich and Perry are nationally acknowledged, legitimate candidates, this fails the basic test of representative democracy, no matter what rules the VA GOP tries to apply to Republican Virginia voters.

Who can tell me the date this document was published?Hint: if you click the Download Original button, you can save the PDF button locally and check the “hidden MS Word creation date”.

You are looking at the Summary Stream data generated by Microsoft Word and embedded in the PDF for the undated latter. The Summary Stream is standard in any Microsoft Component Object Model (COM) document (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc).

The HTTP Last-Modified header confirms that the document was posted to rpv.org at 12/21/2011 10:25am. The NTFS timestamp is unrelated to the COM Summary Stream.

While the RPV may have privately sent an e-mail/fax to the campaigns about the new 15,000 no-check rule in late October, there is still no evidence that the RPV announced the 15,000 no-check rule to the public before 12/21/2011.

Apparently, I stand corrected on the date of the rules change.
Right?listens2glenn on December 29, 2011 at 1:43 PM

Wrong. RPV set a guideline that over 15,000 signatures would be best. That occurred last summer. In 2000 and 2008 the cut off for having your signatures checked was 10,000. That did not change in July. Then sometime in October they changed the guideline to a rule in which only campaigns submitting over 15,000 signatures would not have them checked via computer. Only one campaign, Romney’s, met that new rule. Also, we don’t know when or how the RPV informed the campaigns nor do we know if some of the campaigns might have been given a heads up; i.e., “hey buddy, their is a rule change coming.”

To date, only Gingrich’s, Perry’s, and Paul’s signatures have been checked for validity.

Sorry, but trying hard will only win you the “Most Improved” trophy and close only counts in horseshoes. Ricky Perry, of all people, should know that.

Counters

“They won’t count. They won’t count.” Jeez – because they are not required to do so under the statutory laws duly enacted by the Commonwealth of Virginia when a candidate files a requisite number of signatures, 15,000, to reach a “safe harbor” point where prima facie, at first glance, allows them to accept the signatures as valid on their face with some sort of official statement from Paul and Romney that there are 15,000 and they are valid. Romney did this. Paul almost did, but still had over 10,000 to qualify. Perry and Newt did not.

The total serve different purposes – 15,000 for the safe harbor, 10,000 for primary ballot access. Newt and Perry met neither statutory requirement.

This is the COM Summary Stream generated by MS Word 2010 and embedded in the PDF as an opaque object. The Summary Stream usually includes author, title, creation date, modification date, and document type.

In this case there is no title, only the author (David Rexrode) and the Word creation and last-mod (really last-save) dates.

So this documented was created (and saved) from Microsoft Word at 2011/12/21 10:00:53. According to the HTTP Last-Mod timestamp the PDF was copied to the rpv.org website 25 minutes later at 2011/12/21 10:25.

Romney turned in 16,026, far above the required 10,000. A Romney staffer said because he cleared 15,000 signatures, the party only checked a sample of his signatures, but nearly 80 percent of those checked were valid.

Of course, said Romney staffer didn’t say how big a sample that was, but had the RPV done a thorough job (which, IMHO, they should have done regardless of that October decision in light of Perry’s massive fail), that rate of failure would still have left Romney with over 12,000 valid signatures.

The Osborne lawsuit was filed on Oct 24 (IIRC). So the VA GOP created the new 15,000 no-check rule after that date. If it was in October it had to be right before Halloween.

Gideon7 on December 29, 2011 at 1:01 PM

But it was OCTOBER1!!1!1!1 Just like $19.99 isn’t $20. So cough up 50 percent more signatures that you got in 4 months in 4 weeks or you’re incompetent!!!1!! Come on, chop-chop! Too bad you don’t have a 2008 filing from which to bulk up your signatures (tee-hee)

The law became effective when it was enacted by the Commonwealth of Virginia. When a law is duly enacted, the assumption in the law is “iure agnoscitur” – the law is known, for 1,000 a principle of the Common Law.

Citizens are responsible for knowing the law, e.g. you can’t rob a bank and defend by saying you didn’t know there was a law against robbing banks.

The state only has to advise you of Miranda rights – they do not have to advise you of all of your rights, privileges and consequences under duly enacted law. It is assumed you know them, or, if not, you will inquire.

Perry and Newt were assumed to know the law. They apparently did not. They did nothing. They had consequences. End of argument.

As a lifelong VA resident, I suspect that the Richmond rinos figured that, even with listings from previous efforts available, few would choose Dr. Planters over their boy Mitt. It sure would be a hoot if it backfired. Pretty unlikely though.

You are looking at the Summary Stream data generated by Microsoft Word and embedded in the PDF for the undated latter. The Summary Stream is standard in any Microsoft Component Object Model (COM) document (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc).

Gideon7 on December 29, 2011 at 2:01 PM

I know precisely what I am looking at, and that is the entire point here. This is not a “hidden Microsoft Word creation date”.

The HTTP Last-Modified header confirms that the document was posted to rpv.org at 12/21/2011 10:25am. The NTFS timestamp is unrelated to the COM Summary Stream.

Again, there is no fault in this basic factual statement. The problem is that the post above doesn’t say the PDF was posted to the public on 12/21 (which I thought was a point beyond dispute anyway). It said that there was a hidden Microsoft Word creation date. That coincides with the COM Summary Stream data provided above.

While the RPV may have privately sent an e-mail/fax to the campaigns about the new 15,000 no-check rule in late October, there is still no evidence that the RPV announced the 15,000 no-check rule to the public before 12/21/2011.

Three paragraphs, three statements that are factually correct, three completely unrelated points to the central issue. The article does not claim the rule was announced to the public, nor is there any indication that such a thing was or should have been required. The article claims the candidates were informed individually; the published PDF does not dispute that claim; the “hidden Microsoft Word creation date” does not dispute that claim and is completely irrelevant. Therefore, there is nothing in a cursory examination of the letter that does anything to heighten the controversy surrounding this issue. At worst, it is a wash because the letter is undated and no specific evidence of a transmitted fax/email was provided.

Seems like whatever arguements the Perry and Ginrich camps come up with, the RPV comes back with facts that negate them.

I think this all does not really matter. Like the last presidential primaries, by the time Virginia gets to vote there are only a couple left to vote for anyway. McCain won because there was no one else still running to vote for.

Ex Post Facto is almost exclusively a factor in criminal law. This is civil law here.

An ex post facto law is a law passed to retroactively change the consequences of an action or to criminalize an action which had not ben a criminal act. The retroactive effect is the problem.

Example: I am arrested for going 60 mph on Tuesday. I convince the officer I was going 55, the legal speed limit. On Friday, the legislature enacts a law that sets the speed limit at 50 and makes it retroactive to Monday. I am then charged with going 55 on Tuesday.

Nothing in Virginia criminalized actions retroactively in the last year in the Rules for obtaining ballot access.

Plus, there were no changes in requirements in Virginia – none. The number of signatures was for ballot access was 10,000, has been 10,000 and is still 10,000. 15,000 is for safe harbor – not a requirement. If you feel good with your 10,000, submit them. If not, get 12,000 or 13,000. If you want a safe harbor, get 15,000 and above. Quite simple and explicit.

Also, people are tossing around the words “assumption” and “assumed” here regarding Romney’s signature total.

The more correct terms would be “presumption” or “presumed.”

Presumptions are made all the time in the law. And if you have a problem with that, if you are ever charged with a crime and go into court and the judge says, “You have been charged with X and I sentence you to ten years,” don’t start whining about the presumption of innocence because, according to some here, it is wrong to assume or presume things in the law. Man-up and do your time.

Oh, and you might want to actually read the article in the Richmond-Times Dispatch… here, let me help you out: “The state Republican Party will require voters to sign a loyalty oath in order to participate in the March 6 presidential primary.

Anyone who wants to vote must sign a form at the polling place pledging to support the eventual Republican nominee for president. Anyone who refuses to sign will be barred from voting in the primary.”

So yeah… I’ll stand by my earlier snarky remark on this…

Snorkdoodle Whizbang on December 29, 2011 at 12:22 PM

Thank you for bringing this to my undivided attention. However, based on what you are quoting and that which I highlighted above, my snarky retort is this: A loyalty oath is just that, not a requirement. Most voters will vote their minds in the November election and not be bothered by some silly “loyalty oath”.

Oh, and you might want to actually read the article in the Richmond-Times Dispatch… here, let me help you out: “The state Republican Party will require voters to sign a loyalty oath in order to participate in the March 6 presidential primary.

Anyone who wants to vote must sign a form at the polling place pledging to support the eventual Republican nominee for president. Anyone who refuses to sign will be barred from voting in the primary.”

So yeah… I’ll stand by my earlier snarky remark on this…

Snorkdoodle Whizbang on December 29, 2011 at 12:22 PM

Thank you for bringing this to my undivided attention. However, based on what you are quoting and that which I highlighted above, my snarky retort is this: A loyalty oath is just that, not a requirement. Most voters will vote their minds in the November election and not be bothered by some silly “loyalty oath”.

Oh, wait…sounds like something I said before.

timberline on December 29, 2011 at 3:16 PM

Oh, by the way, primaries are not important. The important election is next November. This one takes all the marbles.
Also, if a voter did sign that loyalty pledge, he still has the right to vote Democrat in the November 2012 election. This is why I say this loyalty oath is meaningless.

You are ASSUMING that everyone else’s staff is as incompetent as Perry’s when it comes to getting sigs.

Perhaps it is you that FAILED!

Gunlock Bill on December 29, 2011 at 2:10 PM

And you are assuming that they are not.

You sure love assumptions when they back your candidate, don’t you.

I just love the mentality that sees the VA GOP assumption that Romney had 10,000 signatures – that would withstand the same validation as those of the other candidates – as unassailable but then opposes statistical reasoning that the assumption, based upon the failure rate of other candidates, might be an unsupportable assumption.

Virginia GOP: We do not care who the citizens of Virginia support and want to vote for as reflected in the polls. They are a bunch of sheeple mules and it does not matter who they want. We will sheeple herd them into their Romney corrals whether they like it or not.

Perry’s lawsuit does not dispute the number of valid signatures (which by the way is not even close to 10,000) nor the number or method by which ballots were discounted.

The suit alleges only that the certification rules are unconstitutional because a). petitioners have to be eligible, registered voters (apparently very difficult to find among the 4 million currently living in Virginia) and b). the primary pledge violates his free speech or something.

The primary pledge for me wavers somewhere between dubious and onerous, but again, the main complaint against the process here revolves around his inability to get 0.25% of the voting population to sign a petition to put him on the ballot, in a state where he expects to get a plurality of votes (say, 20-40%). I cannot be the only one who sees the fundamental disconnect here, which is leading Republicans of all people to challenge laws that certify clean elections by legitimate voters. It only gives wind to the lame disenfranchisement meme perpetuated by The Left ™.

There is not a “hidden creation date” that required any kind of intimate knowledge of Adobe’s encoding protocols. You (the person who blogged about this originally) right-clicked and hit Document Properties. Hooray for you.

This is not correct. When you run Windows Explorer and right-click on a PDF file and click the Details tab you are shown the date of the physical file on your hard disk, not the embedded Microsoft Word creation date.

2. Run Windows Explorer (EXPLORER.EXE) and navigate to the saved PDF file.

3. Right-click on the file name and select Properties.

4. Click on the tab Details to view the document date.

The dialog box will show the Creation Date and the Last Modification Date as today, not 12/21.

Acrobat Reader has no knowledge of the Microsoft Summary data stream. Acrobat Reader treats the data as a blob of unknown bytes (in technical terms, an ‘opaque object’) that was injected by Microsoft Word into the PDF data stream.

The only person privy to the Microsoft Word creation date is the person owning the original .DOC file (presumably David Rexrode). Nobody else.

The original Microsoft Word document creation date of the undated letter was hidden in the PDF. It required some elementary forensic data recovery techniques to find it.

Somehow Romney and Paul had the only boots-on-the-ground competent campaign organizations to get this done with signatures to spare, and yet the failings of Newt & Perry’s team to meet the simple requirement is Romney’s fault, or the result of some super-secret cabal conspiracy. Grow up. Man up. Nut up. Whatever–just stop the whining. You all look like libs– complaining about the success of those more professional, more organized, and more COMPETENT than your team.

AttilaTheHun on December 29, 2011 at 1:40 PM

Although the schoolyard taunting might be fun for you, I doubt the Virginia voters feel that way. I bet they are pretty livid about their state Republican party right about now.

This is not correct. When you run Windows Explorer and right-click on a PDF file and click the Details tab you are shown the date of the physical file on your hard disk, not the embedded Microsoft Word creation date.

You can reproduce this yourself.

Gideon7 on December 29, 2011 at 4:35 PM

You really are not hearing me on this. If you would have just run your same tests on the PDF that I linked, like I asked you a while ago, we would not have to keep going around and around in these same circles.

Here is the information YOU POSTED as the results of taking the effort to run the PDF through a hex editor:

Here is a snapshot of the detail screen I get when I open the PDF in my browser, right-click the open document, and click Document Properties. DOES ANY OF THAT INFORMATION LOOK FAMILIAR TO YOU???

At what point are you going to stop assuming you’re wielding some brand of Internet magic beyond my comprehension, and spend five seconds listening to what I’m saying? Because until that happens, you are not going to comprehend how utterly devoid of any useful information this “research” is to the issue.

Virginia Republicans requested the Va. State Board of Elections to allow it to ask primary voters for a loyalty oath, promising to support the Republican party’s nominee for president in the general election.

Well, why do you suppose Virginia Republicans might request this? Perhaps they’re worried that the primary voters are going to be somewhat unenthusiastic about (not to say “turned off by”) the Republican party’s nominee for president? Why, whatever gave them that idea? The independents and moderates all LOVE Romney!

They wouldn’t be necessary if the ones who didn’t provide their signatures weren’t such bunglers. In Newt’s case he put his entire campaign in the hands of a single crooked worker.

It is symptomatic of a person who has lived their entire life in government. All happy assumptions with no backup plan if anything goes less than perfectly. Any familiarity with the real world would have informed him of the need to allow for the kind of mistakes or fraud that we all know are unavoidable.